Abstractâ€”Compromised node and denial of service are two key attacks in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, we study
data delivery mechanisms that can with high probability circumvent black holes formed by these attacks. We argue that classic
multipath routing approaches are vulnerable to such attacks, mainly due to their deterministic nature. So once the adversary acquires
the routing algorithm, it can compute the same routes known to the source, hence, making all information sent over these routes
vulnerable to its attacks. In this paper, we develop mechanisms that generate randomized multipath routes. Under our designs, the
routes taken by the â€œsharesâ€ of different packets change over time. So even if the routing algorithm becomes known to the adversary,
the adversary still cannot pinpoint the routes traversed by each packet. Besides randomness, the generated routes are also highly
dispersive and energy efficient, making them quite capable of circumventing black holes. We analytically investigate the security and
energy performance of the proposed schemes. We also formulate an optimization problem to minimize the end-to-end energy
consumption under given security constraints. Extensive simulations are conducted to verify the validity of our mechanisms.
Index Termsâ€”Randomized multipath routing, wireless sensor network, secure data delivery.